Bright Eyed Angel
by Marie Suzette
Summary: Piotr's thoughts on red-haired, bright-eyed angels. Written for BujoldFest 08 - "What Piotr thought the first time he met Cordelia and at the moment she brought Pretender's head"


Written for Bujoldfest 2008, prompt: What Piotr thought the first time he met Cordelia and at the moment she brought Pretender's head

When Aral first comes home from Escobar, Piotr does not understand. He does not understand why his son takes _this_ war more to heart than any other; it's not like he even liked the Prince. He does not understand why his son has resigned, and does not understand that it is permanent. He does not understand that lecturing and yelling and scolding are of no use, not now. He does not understand until the Imperial messenger comes, two days later, and a hungover Aral tells him to "Go to hell," and shuts the door in his face.

The first time Piotr starts to really worry, and wonder if the problem is something he can fix, comes the next day, when the next Imperial messenger comes by. Aral has been drinking nonstop for a day and a half now, and does not even hear what the messenger has to say before throwing him bodily out the door. "He could have been for me, you know," Piotr says dryly, but Aral is too drunk to laugh.

The first time Piotr hears her name, Aral is nearly insensible from drink. "Oh, my Cordelia, how far your love has fallen," he mumbles, or something thereabouts. Something incredibly maudlin and tragic and uncharacteristic. Not something a sober man would say. Piotr is surprised, because until now the names Aral's lips uttered had been familiar, mourning for Ges, for his mother, his siblings, his dead. Names Piotr had heard many times, deaths Aral blamed on himself, deaths he wasn't able to stop. (That silly Vorrutyer girl's name never passes his lips, and Piotr wonders.) This name is new.

The first time Piotr realizes that the "Captain, my lovely Captain" Aral goes on about is one and the same with his "Cordelia," Piotr feels a frisson of surprise. He had forgotten, silly him, that elsewhere, not on Barrayar, women could serve. That captains were not all male.

This is the first and last time Piotr asks his son for more information, taking advantage of his drunk state. All he learns of Cordelia is that she cannot come to Barrayar, cannot ever come to Barrayar because it is "too dangerous, too dangerous."

This is also the first time, though not the last time, that Piotr is tempted to march up to Vorbarr Sultana and demand what the Emperor has done with his son, his only son, the last of his line. He gives everything to the Imperium, and _this_ is his reward? To see his son used up and tossed away, _drained_ of his drive, his will, his fire?

The first time Piotr meets Cordelia, he thinks she is an angel. He is up to his knees in fertilizer, fixing the garden in lieu of fixing his son (though it's not fixing his son needs, but a miracle), and he looks up to see a woman both tall and beautiful, a redhead with bright eyes and an almost beatific expression, ruined only by her slightly gaudy dress. She introduces herself, somewhat nervously, and Piotr can only praise the deity that sent her. She, he thinks, will draw his son out of his stupor.

He is right. And he continues thinking her an angel when she joins Aral in the pavilion, when she draws Aral out, when she reforms Aral and gets him to stop wearing that even _gaudier_ floral print shirt. And when she announces the impending arrival of the next in the Vorkosigan line, Piotr is ready to kiss her feet. When it is discovered to be a boy, the next Piotr Miles Vorkosigan, Piotr thinks that his life is complete. She has her eccentricities, but she has done what he had heretofore thought impossible.

The first sign of tarnish on Cordelia's halo appears with the nasty business of the soltoxin and the antidote, and the Miles-that-would-be. When Cordelia proposes to make a _jellyfish_ the next Count Vorkosigan. When the firmness, the stubbornness, the strength of will he had so admired in her when she reasoned with Aral comes around and is used against _him_.

That halo becomes completely tarnished when the guards at ImpMil refuse to let him in. When he returns home and his son _defies_ him for the sake of this off-worlder, hopped-up, Betan _frill_. That is when he decides to deny the _thing_ his name. That is when he roars that he will throw them _out_. But before this fight can gain even more epic proportions, before the fallen angel can taunt him more with her defiance and her unwillingness to _know her place_, the world intrudes.

The world intrudes for a month. A month of terror, of determination, of grit in his teeth and mud in his boots, of fearful boy-emperors, and proud-strong daughters-in-law, of unyielding Aral fighting power-hungry Darian. Not worth the Vor name.

The first time she tries to hurt him, really hurt him, not just a throwaway comment about remembering the dead in the midst of a battle for a young mutant's life, it is when she is consumed with rage about something as small as her mutant's life, while he is concerned with the fate of the Empire. It is the first time he finds her petty, finds her blinded by emotion. She accuses him of treason, baits him on purpose, and he almost falls for it. It is a clever thrust she makes, but he parries, and he sees both her grief and rage, but has more important things to worry about.

And then she is gone.

Piotr watches Aral fight fear and terror, despair and concern, because Aral too has bigger things to think about. No matter how tempting it may be to risk all for the sake of his wife and … and son, the fate of the Imperium comes first. Such is the fate, the curse, the pledge of the Vor.

The first time Piotr feels a flash of fear of Cordelia is also the first time he feels a flash of awe. Momentary, temporary, ephemeral, nothing he would admit to unless under fast-penta. (Even then, maybe not.)

He has been closeted with Aral, and Vortala, and Kanzian, and half a dozen people of no importance, plus two men it is _critical_ they convince to betray the pretender. They are finally, after hours of hard and long negotiations, nearing a breakthrough when the doors fly open, even though nobody is supposed to interrupt, and _she_ strides in.

She walks in with her ratty clothes and her red hair and her bright eyes, as if she hasn't disappeared for almost a week, looking as if she could care less about the trouble she had brought upon them all. And he cannot hold in his anger, his fury, that she and her _inexplicable_ Betan upbringing cannot see that there are more important things at risk than her own petty desires.

"Good God, woman," he demands, completely and utterly furious, "where have you been?"

And she looks at him, with those fierce, defiant eyes, and puts her bag on the table. And then she dares to _smile_, as if this is some game!

"Shopping." Piotr cannot contain his indignation, his frustration. The woman is _playing_ with him when they are in the middle of a _war_. "Want to see what I bought?" she asks, voice low and dangerous.

Without waiting for a response, she yanks open the bag, and something comes rolling out, coming to a rest in front of him.

His world turns upside down. He had forgotten that _death_ also comes in the form of an angel.


End file.
